An extremely popular video cover of English musician David Bowie’s song “Space Oddity” recorded by former astronaut Commander Chris Hadfield while aboard the International Space Station (ISS) last year was taken down from Hadfield’s YouTube page on Wednesday due to copyright licensing restrictions. Hadfield warned of the imminent takedown on his Twitter page on Tuesday.

The former astronaut’s well-executed cover of the classic Bowie hit, which racked up millions of views on YouTube last year, was made into a private video on Wednesday. Hadfield took this action in accordance with the terms of a licensing agreement he had entered into with Bowie’s people, which limited his permission to use the song to one year from posting.

Hadfield’s cover video, which we previously described as the most literal interpretation of “Space Oddity” we’ve ever seen, consists of footage from the ISS along with music partially created there. The former astronaut was paying homage to David Bowie's album Ziggy Stardust. When Hadfield had posted his recording on Google+ on May 12, 2013, he wrote, “With deference to the genius of David Bowie, here’s Space Oddity, recorded on Station. A last glimpse of the World.”

Hadfield performed his free-fall rendition of the song on the ISS, 250 miles above ground, and had changed a number of the lyrics to account for his particular circumstances. Nevertheless, as The Economistnoted last year, Hadfield's cover still likely falls within the scope of terrestrial copyright laws as long as it is considered to consist of the same substantive music and lyrics of the original.

In its article detailing some of the copyright complications of Hadfield's cover, The Economist described how Hadfield's five-minute video "had the potential to create a tangled web of intellectual property issues" as a result of the intersection of space, copyright, and international law.

But the article noted that because the song was published on YouTube, the production and distribution were entirely terrestrial, and since the retired astronaut had obtained permission from Bowie's representatives, his case was pretty cut and dried. As such, a new license from Bowie would allow Hadfield to continue to broadcast his song over the Web.

In response to concerns about the video's takedown, Hadfield and his son Evan, who helped create the video, posted a message to reddit on Tuesday, explaining their intentions to seek a renewal of the license with Bowie's people at a later point.

It has been a year since my son and I created and released the Space Oddity video. We have been amazed and delighted that so many people enjoyed it—and maybe saw what spaceflight can really be like. It helped show that humans have left Earth, and that the Space Station is a new stage, for not just science and exploration, but for our art and music too. With exploration comes insight—with perspective comes self-realization.

We had permission from David Bowie’s people to post the video on YouTube for a year, and that year is up. We are working on renewing the license for it, but as there are no guarantees when it comes to videos shot in space, we thought you might want to have one last look before we take it down.

Thanks for everything. You've all been incredible throughout.

Here's to hoping that the two sides can arrive at an amicable agreement.